Remarks at the Korca Agro-Business Fair

Remarks by USAID Mission Director, Roberta Mahoney
Korca Agrobusiness Fair
October 11, 2008

Prime Minister Berisha,Honorable Minister Gjana,Prefect of Korca, Executive Director of KASH,
Director Maho, Ladies and gentlemen, Mirëmengjes!

Let me begin by saying that it is my great pleasure to participate this morning in the opening of KASH’s agribusiness fair in Korça.  This is my first trip to this beautiful part of Albania with the beautiful scenery, mountains, Lake Ohrid, rural landscapes, and the city of Korça. The concert yesterday in the center of the town was very interesting and I really enjoyed it. Thank you for inviting me to your beautiful city.

Since 2001, USAID has supported the creation of KASH as an organization to support Albania’s growing agricultural sector with services and to advocate for Albanian farmers and agribusinesses. USAID is pleased to be here today here in the beautiful city of Korça and congratulates KASH on another successful event.  

In my years of experience working in countries around the world with USAID, I am a strong believer that a country’s agricultural development can have a tremendous impact on reducing poverty, creating jobs, increasing incomes, and spurring overall economic growth and development. This is more than true for Albania with its tremendous potential in on agriculture and agriculture–related industry that already produces almost 23% of Albania’s GDP.

This is the reason why the United States government, through USAID, has funded the Albanian Agriculture Competitiveness project (AAC), a five year project to help farmers of this beautiful country. We know that farmers here face many challenges and AAC will help you address these challenges. We have opened an office in Korça to help farmers address these challenges and enable them to be competitive in the domestic and global markets.

Coming from Tirana yesterday, I saw many farms. But I had the opportunity to see the splendid apple orchard of Mr. Rakip Musa in Devoll. His orchard is the product of many years of hard work, good investments, the right skills and careful applications of the right technologies. His experience and his business oriented mentality can be a model for progressive apple farmers. His investments in cold storage will help many farmers in his area extend the season for selling apples at a good price. We certainly hope that AAC will help more farmers follow Mr. Musa’s example and bring more wealth to their families and neighbors.

Thinking of your future and how you will face the coming challenges will be important. One big challenge you will face is the need to associate with your neighbors. This is a good thing and has nothing to do with the forced collective farming during the Communist period. Association is your choice. And association in this project will bring benefits to you and to your community. 

In many countries, farmers choose to associate with their neighbors, buying fertilizer, seedlings, and pesticides at lower prices. You can agree to build new storage facilities and the apples can be sold at the most appropriate time. This is what American farmers do—with corn, wheat, dairy products, potatoes, cherries, apples…in all crops.

Association among individual farmers allows them to act as a bigger farmer and get lower prices for inputs and higher prices for their crops.

I wish all of the participants at this weekend’s fair success and look forward to helping Albanian agriculture reach its true potential.

Faleminderit dhe suksese!